


Make Me Remember

by elutherya



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Post-Apocalypse, Pre-Relationship, Sharing a Bed, ambiguous setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29754357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elutherya/pseuds/elutherya
Summary: As much as Hongjoong wants to think of him as a stranger, it’s hard when they’ve spent so long together. There’s something revealing about hours of travel, the way it feels like every intimate part of you is laid open when there’s nothing but the stretch of road in front of you and the radio lulling quietly.
Relationships: Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 14
Kudos: 59





	Make Me Remember

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raiykei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiykei/gifts).



> This is a little early, but it's for Rai and they deserve a little happiness on the weekend! Happy (early) birthday bb! Here's a little something for you, because you deserve the world! A touch of dystopian atmosphere, found family and seongjoong? Maybe so.

It starts with something unassuming.

It starts with Seonghwa pulling over to the road and asking Hongjoong if he needs a ride.

There’s those days where Hongjoong would have said no, where he would have kept walking along the side of the road until night fell and he needed to find a place to sleep. There were those days, but the months of travelling alone, it left Hongjoong too tired to care about keeping to himself anymore. 

Days ago, weeks ago, maybe even months. 

Time blurs together until Hongjoong can’t remember when the two of them started travelling together. Too many days of driving down empty stretches of road, the world taking on a pale blue sheen from the too bright sun coming in through the windows. The lull of the music playing quietly from the speakers, both of them murmuring along with the words that they’ve memorized from the repeated listens when they’ve chosen to let the CD play. Nights of barricading themselves in separate rooms when they’ve found an empty house that looks promising enough, knives under their pillows and bats against the walls.

“Think we’ll find anything?”

Hongjoong looks away from the window, away from the open fields and the vehicles pushed down into ditches. Fingers tapping against the steering wheel, Seonghwa doesn’t look away from the road, but Hongjoong can see his worry in the tense line of his shoulders and clenched jaw rather than his expression. “Yeah.”

Seonghwa snorts, giving a small shake of his head. “Reassuring.”

“We’ll find something,” Hongjoong answers, looking back out the window. They'll find something, be it another empty town, supplies, or others. They’ll find something, good or bad, if they want to or not.

“I guess you’re right.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Hongjoong doesn’t miss the way Seonghwa’s shoulders relax, how he reaches out to turn the music up, a barely there smile tugging at the corner of his lips. 

Whatever they find, Hongjoong knows they’re in it together.

* * *

“Hold still,” Seonghwa murmurs and Hongjoong clenches his teeth.

The candlelight throws harsh shadows across the bathroom and Hongjoong does his best to hold still so Seonghwa won’t have to worry about slipping. 

Hongjoong’s hands clench into fists against the tops of his thighs as he tries not to flinch away from the way Seonghwa quickly stitches the gash in his calf closed. Each press of the needle has him digging his nails into his own skin, leaving ragged crescents from his chipped nails. “Fucking shit, Seonghwa.”

“Now you know how it feels when you’ve stitched me up,” Seonghwa glances up as he finishes, smiling despite the way Hongjoong can see how it doesn’t reach his eyes. If it weren’t for the way his hands were bloody, Hongjoong knows Seonghwa would be reaching up to soothe the shaking in Hongjoong’s own hands. The minor tremble he hasn’t been able to shake since he got thrown into a wall and barely scrambled away from the threat of a knife.

“I’m not going to make a habit of it,” Hongjoong tries to joke, reaching for a stained shirt they’d thrown over the edge of the tub. He holds it out to Seonghwa, watches as he takes it and uses it to clean his hands as best he can. Seonghwa finally sighs, reaching for the bottle of vodka they’d found stashed deep in the back of a freezer full of rot.

Hongjoong remains quiet as Seonghwa cleans his hand with it, before carefully cleaning Hongjoong’s leg as well. “Are you okay with sharing a room? I’m worried about what might happen if—”

“Yeah,” Hongjoong cuts him off before he can continue. Sharing a room makes sense, even if sleeping is when they’re most vulnerable. It goes against every instinct that tells him to find a quiet space to barricade himself in, but the idea of being alone scares him more than being with someone. The what if they get found by the group who had tried to hunt them down earlier and his leg isn’t up to the task of running to keep himself safe. “I trust you, it makes sense. We should probably have been doing it for a while now anyways.”

“Oh, yeah,” Seonghwa looks up, surprised, but hides it quickly. He blows out the candle before Hongjoong can point it out, and then there’s an arm slipping under Hongjoong’s to help him up to his feet and hobble out of the bathroom.

It’s dark, but they go slow and Seonghwa is careful to kick anything out of the way they could trip over as they make their way to a back office in the house. Second story, a small window set high with nothing that could make it easy to climb up to and only one door in.

“I’ll get our bags and then we can lock it down,” Seonghwa’s voice is quiet, but Hongjoong still shivers at just how close he is pressed as Seonghwa leads him over to an upturned chair. He rights it, putting Hongjoong in it, before turning and leaving the room.

Hongjoong glances down at his leg, the injury from earlier only a vague shadow in the faint moonlight creeping in from the window. He knows it’s bad, that if he were on his own, he would be fucked. Seonghwa is with him though and it’s something he’s surprised to find he’s relieved by, the trust he has in him is something that’s become nearly tangible with the time they’ve spent traveling together.

* * *

Hongjoong wakes with a jolt, heart thundering in his chest and fear making him want to crawl out of his own skin. He holds himself still, keeping his own breathing as even and quiet as possible as he tries to take stock of the room around him. It’s hard, with his head throbbing in a clear sign that he didn’t sleep enough, but not enough to distract him from the warm weight pressed along his back.

_Seonghwa_ , he finally manages to work out after a handful of moments. The shared room, and the shared makeshift bed.

As soon as he realizes, he sags against the blankets, against Seonghwa. It’s nice, grounding in that clear sign that he’s missed the intimacy of close touches, even if it’s an arm wound around his waist while he sleeps. His leg throbs, so he lets himself have a moment to soak in the warmth across his back, the hot breath against his neck and the fingers that twitch against his stomach as Seonghwa dreams.

He lets himself have a second, a minute, before finally making an attempt to pull himself free.

Che arefully untangles himself the sprawl of Seonghwa’s limbs, freezing every time Seonghwa so much as shifts in his sleep. He doesn’t want to wake him, not when the light coming in through the window is dim and they’ll be back on the road for the rest of the day.

There’s cans of food in the corner of the room, dented and ready for them to open, but Hongjoong ignores them in favour of grabbing his bag. He can wait for Seonghwa to wake up before eating, the food always better with shared company. Quietly, Hongjoong digs through his bag for something to wear, but pauses when his hands find the sketchbook he’d buried at the bottom. He pulls it out tentatively, cradling it carefully between his hands. 

It’s something from a time before all of this, all of the running and fear. A time when Hongjoong had dreams that extended past just surviving.

He goes to put it away, but his stomach twists at the thought. With a grunt, he digs around the pockets of his bag, finding a worn pencil, before he hobbles his way across the room with them in his hands. 

He curls up neatly in the chair Seonghwa had put him in the night before, careful to avoid pulling at his stitches. He pauses for a moment, before he gently flips open the sketchbook to a blank page. He leans it against his knees and holds the pencil between his fingers. It’s there that he freezes, unsure of where to start. He ignores the tremble in his hand, ignores the way he can feel his heart crawling up his throat at his own indecision. 

It’s the same familiar feeling that made him shove his book to the bottom of his bag and pretend it wasn’t there for months.

With a grimace, he looks up and can’t help the way his eyes fall to Seonghwa. The morning sun is starting to slip through through the window, cutting across the room and falling over him. 

As much as Hongjoong wants to think of him as a stranger, it’s hard when they’ve spent so long together. There’s something revealing about hours of travel, the way it feels like every intimate part of you is laid open when there’s nothing but the stretch of road in front of you and the radio lulling quietly.

He drops his pencil to the blank sheet of paper, and before he can work himself up over it, he guides the pencil over the page.

It’s all enough to leave his thoughts in chaos and all he wishes is that he could quiet the insecurities that have been haunting him for months.

With a grimace, he lowers his eyes back to the page and instead of letting everything eat him alive, he falls into the familiarity of dragging the pencil across the page. Each new stroke feels like pulling teeth, but he doesn’t let himself stop. He doesn’t let himself hurl the pencil across the room like he wants to, just makes one more curving line for each thought of stopping.

It takes everything in him not to drop his pencil, to not rip the page out of the book and tear it to shreds. Every new line feels like a failure, despite how he can start to see the way it could be something beautiful if he only kept _going_.

He flinches when he hears the floor creak, looking up sharply. His heart stutters in his chest when he realizes Seonghwa’s awake and watching him. His pencil skitters across the paper, streaking through the confused mess of lines. He freezes, stuck under the way Seonghwa is watching him from their makeshift bed, something like fondness plainly written across his face.

“I didn’t know you drew,” Seonghwa says, voice sleep rough and worn. He runs a hand over his face and Hongjoong watches him, eyes on the way his shirt slips off his shoulder, stretched and borrowed. 

“Yeah, from before,” Hongjoong shrugs, making no attempt to shut the book. He just watches the way Seonghwa nods, smiles tiredly, before getting up to hunt around the stock of their food.

“I danced,” Seonghwa pops open a can, places it off to the side, before he pops open another. He pushes up from his crouch, wandering over to Hongjoong, holding one out for him to take. “I’m scared that I’ve forgotten how to.”

It’s a shared secret, a piece of them that Hongjoong had wondered even existed anymore.

He looks down at the sketch on his paper, takes in the clear lines that make up Seonghwa sleeping peacefully. It’s nowhere near how he knows he used to be able to draw, but he can see the parts of his old self in the work, still there, just a little worn and tired.

He looks back up at Seonghwa, setting the sketchpad off to the side to take the can he’s being offered.

“Maybe we can practice,” Hongjoong says and Seonghwa nods as he considers the words. It’s a silly thing, in comparison to everything they’ve been doing, but it feels important at that moment. It feels important, here with Seonghwa. That small little piece of hope that says he’s more than just the running and fighting, more than just surviving, that they both are.

That realization that Seonghwa makes him want to remember what it meant to enjoy living instead of gritting his teeth and trying to claw his way through another day.

“I’d like that.” Seonghwa answers, smiling in a way that tells Hongjoong that maybe he feels the same way. It’s a promise in a way, between the two of them to stick together to get to a place where they can.

Days, weeks, maybe even months.

Something that feels a lot like hope bubbles up in Hongjoong’s chest.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to come talk to me about these boys, possible prompts or anything at all: you can find me over at [twitter](https://twitter.com/Elesteria). I'm always down to chat at new people! You can also find me at [curiouscat](https://t.co/1yfgiUBE0r) if you have any thoughts, prompts or stuff that you're too nervous to say in public.


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